Page:Ulysses, 1922.djvu/552

Rh here to witness a clean straight fight and we heartily wish both men the best of good luck. Mahak makar a back.

(To Stephen.) Say it again.

(Nervous, friendly, pulls himself up.) I understand your point of view, though I have no king myself for the moment. This is the age of patent medicine. A discussion is difficult down here. But this is the point. You die for your country, suppose. (He places his arm on Private Carr’s sleeve.) Not that I wish it for you. But I say: Let my country die for me. Up to the present it has done so. I don’t want it to die. Damn death. Long live life!

(Levitates over heaps of slain in the garb and with the halo of Joking Jesus, a white jujube in his phosphorescent face.)

Kings and unicorns! (He falls back a pace.) Come somewhere and we’ll… What was that girl saying?…

Eh, Harry, give him a kick in the knackers. Stick one into Jerry.

(To the privates, softly.) He doesn’t know what he’s saying. Taking a little more than is good for him. Absinthe, the greeneyed monster. I know him. He’s a gentleman, a poet. It’s all right.

(Nods, smiling and laughing.) Gentleman, patriot, scholar and judge of impostors.